


i've got a feeling (that you're feeling it)

by Hymn



Series: Hymn's Fic: The Mandalorian Collection [10]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Baby sitting, Building trust, Cooking, Discussion of kink, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Gen, IF I MISSED A TAG PLS LET ME KNOW THANK YOU, Negotiations, Pre Relationship, Tension, Unresolved Tension, and a soft dom, and stone, but all cara and din do is talk about it sometimes, cara is a top, of a sort, probs ooc, so much cooking, soft soft soft, this is the part that goes friends to... and the lovers bit is later on lol, this starts a lot more aggressively than it continues as lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:35:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27235870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hymn/pseuds/Hymn
Summary: Greef points between the two of them. “So you gotta tell me. Are you two knocking boots?”
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Din Djarin & Cara Dune, Din Djarin & Cara Dune, Din Djarin/Cara Dune, brief cara/oc
Series: Hymn's Fic: The Mandalorian Collection [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1561399
Comments: 20
Kudos: 90





	i've got a feeling (that you're feeling it)

**Author's Note:**

> i started this as an answer to my own question: what would it take to get din feeling safe enough to be a pillow princess? also, it was meant to include porn but it got v long and the less said about the shit show of the last month and a half in particular the better, so...better this than nothing at all? figured i'd better post up before s2 drops or it'd probably never see light of day lol
> 
> happy reading, <3

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Greef points between the two of them. “So you gotta tell me. Are you two knocking boots?”

“ _What_ ,” says the Mandalorian.

Cara just laughs, leaning heavily against the table. It’s fucking funny, but for some reason her laughter has Din looking over at her, posture giving off that bristling, offended air. “What?” she asks between sniggers. “Please, like you’d ever be down for what I’m into.”

Din’s helmet cocks.

“Do I want to ask,” Greef ponders, pouring three shots. One is for Cara, one is for Karga himself, and the other is ostensibly for the Mandalorian, but this round Greef drinks it. He nudges Cara’s across the table and decides: “No, no I do not.”

Cara lifts her shot into the air and salutes Din with it. 

When he just stares at her, she winks and downs it, slamming the glass back onto the table with a bit of fanfare. She’s just drunk enough not to let it go, so she says: “This tincan couldn’t take an order to save his life, Greef.”

Greef complains: “But didn’t I just say I _don’t want_ to know?”

“I do,” is what the Mandalorian says. “I mean-- I want to know. What do you mean by that?”

The kid’s in Din’s lap, wrapped about with one strong arm to keep him in place; not asleep though it’s getting late. Instead the little guy is wide eyed and wondering, watching the way the lights glitter through glass, small and vulnerable and frustratingly precious. So Cara’s drunk but not dumb with it, not willing to become useless in case shit goes south. 

Which means that she _knows_ this is a bad avenue of conversation; that doesn’t mean she cares though. Leaning back in her chair she gives Din a long, slow onceover, letting herself try to imagine it. She can’t, which isn’t much of a surprise. “Hm, you really want to know?”

Din snaps, “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

“Touchy,” Cara grins back. 

Greef’s refilled her shot glass and slid it and the ceremonial third shot over to her. She downs both rather than answer, feeling them burn through her; the cantina is loud tonight, busy and bright now that the remnants of the Empire have all but been routed from these parts. The clamor gives them a sense of privacy, even if Cara does keep having to raise her voice to be heard.

Before she can take hold of the bottle to refill this time, the Mandalorian reaches out with his free hand and grabs her. The weave of his glove rubs rough against her skin, his thumb pressed hard against the veins of Cara’s bare inner wrist. 

In half a heartbeat she’s got her hand twisted to grasp back at him, an equal hold. They stare at each other.

Greef complains some more: “This is why I asked if you were knocking boots! This right here! I’ve half a mind to take this bottle somewhere else a little less tense with repressed sexual longing. I did not--”

“Karga,” the Mandalorian grunts. “Shut up.”

“Leave,” Cara tacks on, smiling. “If you want. But I’m keeping the bottle.”

Sighing, Greef reaches instead for the three glasses and sets about refilling them. He drinks all of them one right after the other. Cara says, “This is what I mean,” and dips her head down toward their locked arms. “You could never just lay back and let go, could you? I like to do all the work, call the shots. Don’t much like to be touched. I doubt you could handle it.”

Din says nothing; his grip gets tighter.

Cara tugs him closer, forcing him to stretch across the table. She’s still smiling, though it probably isn’t a nice one anymore. “Or is that what you want, Mandalorian? To be laid out and wrecked until you fall apart? Hm, maybe you _do_ need someone to take care of you good and proper.”

“I’ve followed your lead before.”

“When it suited you,” Cara points out. “When it was tactical, not personal.”

“I could handle it,” Din says, voice tight with challenge.

It makes Cara raise a brow, ease off. At first Din doesn’t let go, but when Cara pulls a little sharper he releases her all at once, as if he’d forgotten he was even holding on. Cara’s not sure if it’s the drinking or the Mandalorian that’s making her stomach twist like this, but either way, she thinks it's time to cut off this line of conversation. Too dangerous, apparently, even if she can’t pinpoint _why_.

“Yeah,” is what she says. “Yeah, I’m sure you could handle anything if you had to. But the question is-- would you _want_ to? If it’s not yes, then I don’t want any part of it.”

He doesn’t answer.

Cara nods, smile softening. Reaches out for the bottle and pours three shots. “I need to catch up,” she laughs when Greef claims she’s drinking his share. The Mandalorian remains silent, stoic, watching them drink and drink until they’re stumbling out the cantina into the cool air of Nevarro, safe beneath the stars. The fresh air is a shock; Cara drank more than she planned to in the end. 

“Why’re you following me?” she asks, halfway into slurring, when she’s climbing the stairs to her apartment and glances back to find the Mandalorian on her heels.

He says, “We need a place to stay.”

Cara stares a minute. Then she flings her arm up to indicate the area out past the city’s limits. “You’ve got a kriffing starship.”

Din says, “The other direction, Dune.”

Cara switches arms. “My point still stands, Djarin. Why’re you following me?”

“He’s asleep,” Din says, easy as anything. “Don’t want to wake him up taking a speeder through the lava fields. Not my fault Nevarro doesn’t have a spaceport.”

“But--”

Din lifts the sleeping child up, holding him with both hands so that Cara’s staring down right into that tiny, green face. He looks so damned _peaceful_ , utterly sweet. Cara’s heart clenches and she makes a strangled noise of defeat. “ _Fine_. Get the fuck in, Mandalorian. Stop looking so smug!”

“You can’t even see my face,” he murmurs.

“Like I need to,” Cara says, rolling her eyes. Once they’re in the locks auto-engage and she flips on a few lights; Din’s never been in her apartment before. It’s mostly one big, open room, a storage closet and bathroom the only things hidden behind doors. She nods toward the couch, shucking off her armor, her weapons, her boots. She’s tired, worn out suddenly and a little queasy from all the liquor, all of space threatening to spin about inside her head. Sleep is calling her name and nothing will keep her from her bed, not even false modesty.

“Your couch has bloodstains, Dune.”

“Deal with it. Or there’s always the floor, if you prefer.” Cara falls face first into her bed. “Turn the lights off when you’re done.”

With her eyes closed, she listens to Din stand there awkwardly, just inside her door where she left him. Then he moves, quiet and careful, setting aside his biggest weapons so he can recline back on her couch. It’s not too far from her, and at first the awareness that he’s so close by while she’s trying to sleep has her skin prickling.

“You forgot the lights,” she mutters.

There’s a pause, and then Din sighs and gets up again, goes and flicks the lights back off. Cara keeps listening to him, getting used to his presence, estimating the space between them and how fast she can get her hand around the blaster bolted under her bed frame. She doesn’t really think she needs it, but old habits die hard.

“Thank you,” he whispers, couch springs creaking.

Cara presses her face into her pillow, finally relaxing. “You’re welcome,” she sighs out. “Now do me a favor and go to _sleep_.”

“Hm.”

A minute passes and then another. Cara’s almost drifted off, the world gone slow and syrupy around her, tilting slightly but not too much to make her ill, when the Mandalorian asks: “Why don’t you think I can handle it?”

Cara makes a questioning noise, her brain not quite connecting.

“What you like. Taking orders. You said I could handle it but you didn’t mean it. Don’t think I’d like it. Why?”

The tightness in his voice is enough to wake her up, just enough to understand what he’s asking. She doesn’t understand why, however, nor does she care to at the moment. Cara groans. “Go to _bed_ , Din.”

“I don’t have a bed,” Din says. “I have a couch and it’s lumpy. Answer the question and I’ll let you sleep, Dune.”

Sighing, she does: “It’s about vulnerability. You gotta-- you gotta let someone in all the way. Trust someone that much. Just following orders isn’t enough. And I don’t think you could do that. I don’t… I don’t think you have anyone you’d trust enough to really let go with. You don’t know how to surrender, do you?”

The Mandalorian is quiet.

“There. That’s why. Happy now?” she grumbles, pulling her pillow over her head.

If he ever answers her, Cara doesn’t hear. She falls asleep to the steady sound of his breathing, the slightly faster inhale-exhale of the kid, and the distant sounds of Nevarro at night. When she wakes in the morning, both Mandalorian and child are gone.

\---

Honestly? Cara forgets about the whole thing. 

Months pass and their lives keep on ticking along, Din dropping in every now and again when he needs safety, the familiarity of friendly faces. Occasionally he just needs some space, a chance to get out and do some of the grittier work that made him who he was. Fatherhood suits him probably, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need a break now and then. Cara gets that, and while she still maintains that she doesn’t really do the babysitting thing, that doesn’t stop Din from dropping the youngling in her arms and disappearing without a word; she gets used to it.

But then one of those times Din visits happens to coincide with Cara having a bit of fun. She’s got a very nice offworlder laid out on her bed: vocal, appreciative, so very pretty when she teases. He’ll fly off tomorrow sated and happy and leave Cara with a definite swagger in her walk after this. Except:

There’s a knock on the door.

When Cara doesn’t answer it, Din decrypts the lock. 

“Dune, you in--”

His voice cuts off all of a sudden, right around the time Cara’s offworlder comes with an expression of absolute bliss on his face. Cara keeps working at him until he’s limp and twitching, gone oversensitive. She wants to keep playing -- would keep playing, just as they’d planned -- but there’s a Mandalorian in her room staring at them.

“You know, locks exist for a reason,” Cara says, turning from the bed to get up, standing as solid as she can between Din’s gaze and her guest. Her hand is wet; she holds it out a little awkwardly to the side so that it won’t drip on her clothes. 

The Mandalorian looks like one of his old carbonite bounties; frozen in place. In his arms the kid trills happily when he sees Cara. Cara winks back at him, but doesn’t leave her position in front of the bed. Instead, she looks pointedly at Din. “You need to leave,” she says. “Go see Karga. Come back in a few hours, yeah? We can talk then.”

“Uh-- I just--”

“No,” Cara interrupts. “Not now.”

From the bed her offworlder says, “Who is that? What’s going on?”

She doesn’t like the way he sounds: nervous, stressed. That’s not what her partners are supposed to be experiencing when she’s done with them. Cara can feel the way her posture changes; from stern to foreboding. This man just trusted her to take him apart with her hands and mouth. The protective way she feels now is big and dark and full bodied. She adjusts her stance into a ready one.

“Don’t worry. He’s leaving,” Cara says. “Or I’m going to _make_ him.”

The Mandalorian jolts. Twists his helmet from side to side as if surprised to find himself there in her bedroom. The arm around his kid tightens; he takes a stumbling step back. “Right. I am. Sorry.”

Cara doesn’t quite know how to feel about him walking back out her door. There’s something complicated going on in the back of her mind, wondering how this will play out with Din. But she doesn’t really have the space to ponder it, not now. Instead, she turns back to her bed, wipes her hand off on her own sheets, and kisses the offworlder’s knee, his thigh, his hip, anywhere she can reach to press her lips to damp skin, showing her appreciation.

“Hey,” she says, voice soft and steady. “You doing all right?”

He smiles. “I am now.”

\---

She’s cleaned up by the time Din comes back, freshly showered and new sheets on the bed, as is her usual tradition afterward. Sometimes she gets herself off in the shower, remembering the way her partner moved beneath her, the noises they made. Not this time, though. This time, she’s been thinking about whether or not Din will say anything. _What_ he might say. That night in the cantina comes back to her, Din’s insistence that he could handle it. She still doesn’t think he can; figures that he’s thinking the same, now that he’s seen a taste of it.

No matter what, she’s going to play it casual.

Which is the smart choice, since apparently Din’s decided the same thing. He comes back in the middle of the night, the few hours after that she’d requested. This time when he knocks, she opens the door instead of waiting to see if he’ll pick the lock again. “Hey,” she says. “Give me that, shouldn’t he be in bed?”

The youngling is deposited into her arms. He gives a sleepy little chirp, so small and bundled and with his ears lax, eyes barely open at all. Still, he curls into her arms, face against her neck. Cara smiles, warmed all the way through.

The Mandalorian says, “Is it okay if we stay here tonight?”

Cara rolls her eyes. “You mean, is it okay if you drop the kid off with his nanny? I once was a shock trooper, feared by all. This is _not_ what I expected out of my retirement.”

While she’s talking, Cara’s also going into the small storage room she’s repurposed to be the youngling’s playroom. It’s reinforced with as many locks as she could get her hands on, and _still_ the little green alien manages to get out of it any time he gets hungry enough. But it’s great for when he needs to sleep; Cara doesn’t feel like she has to tiptoe through her own home as much.

She gets him down into the crate she uses as a crib, rough on the outside but decked out inside with pillows and blankets she’s picked up from the market, a toy or three that Din’s not _too_ worried about him trying to eat. The Mandalorian follows her, a silent, shining shadow made of beskar steel and gratitude.

After the kid’s down and the door’s shut, he says: “You’ve gotten good at that.”

“I hate your face,” Cara tells him. “Even though I’ve never seen it. C’mon, I’m starving.”

She shoves him, hand in the center of his back and no hesitation. It’s a test in a way, just to make certain they’re good with what he walked in on. He doesn’t flinch away, or act like it’s anything out of the ordinary, so Cara thinks they’re probably okay. 

Din complains, “You’re always hungry.”

“Takes a lot of fuel to keep this ol’ girl up and running,” Cara grins, waving a hand down her body when Din glances back at her. He huffs, and she imagines he’s rolling his eyes behind that visor. 

“I’m not cooking,” he warns.

“You always say that.”

“Yeah, but I _mean_ it this time, Dune. Tell me there’s real food here.”

There isn’t, but Cara’s not going to tell him. It’s not as though he doesn’t know it already. Din walks through her apartment with an easy familiarity; he should, since he’s never bothered to get his own place and refuses to stay with Karga. The open layout makes it easy to watch him prowl through to the kitchen area, depositing weapons and cumbersome gear as he goes. 

Cara doesn’t bother to join him. Whenever he’s in her kitchen she tends to stay well out of reach. Instead, she sits on the edge of her bed across the room and just watches him. _Wait for it_ , she thinks.

Slamming closed her cold storage, Din asks, “How are you still alive?”

It’s funny the way traditions begin without fanfare, without anyone even realizing until it’s already too late. They’ve had variations of this exact conversation more times than Cara has thought to count. There’s a comfort in its repetition, the routine of Din settling back into her life, however brief the stop may be. 

Cara spreads her hands out, smiling, when Din turns on his heel to glower at her. “If _someone_ wouldn’t throw a fit every time I mention getting a cooking droid…”

“Buy one,” he tells her, chin dropping and shoulders lifting. “I could use the target practice.”

Cara snorts, slapping her raised palms down onto her thighs. “Shut up and cook me something, Mandalorian.”

The long look he gives her is easy enough to read. At the end of it though his shoulders drop and he starts rifling through her pantry, digging out the provisions he left last time. Cara never touches them; as far as she’s concerned they belong to the Mandalorian and they can sit there gathering dust until his beskar ass comes back around to do something with them.

Like now, when he finds enough non-perishable ingredients to put together teltier noodles. 

“It’d be better fresh,” Cara points out. She’s loitering nearer the kitchen now that she can smell the vegetables cooking. They sizzle on the grill while the water boils for the noodles. Her mouth waters, watching Din’s hands. She only ever sees them bare when he’s cooking. Hard to look away from, for reasons she doesn’t usually like to unpack. So she doesn’t; just watches, enjoying the visage of him in all his beskar finery cooking her dinner.

He says, “Of course it’d be better fresh. Most food is better _fresh_ , Dune.”

“Yeah, yeah. We can go shopping tomorrow if it makes you happy.”

He doesn’t respond, but Cara is fully prepared to be quietly bullied to the market in the morning. If this goes as usual, then since he didn’t drop the kid off and turn immediately on his heel to run away, he’ll probably loiter for a few days, maybe pick up a puck off Greef eventually. Until then, he’ll stay here with her, sleeping on her couch and making food that they don’t eat together. 

Out of nowhere, Cara’s stomach swoops. Must be from hunger; she _did_ work up an appetite earlier. 

“Almost done?”

The Mandalorian ignores her.

Cara wanders away, goes to the storage room and opens the door to peek in on the little guy. He’s still sleeping soundly; Cara stands beside his crib a moment, watching him, just breathing along in time to the gentle rise and fall of his tiny chest beneath his blankets. It’s nice. But if Cara lingers too long she’s afraid he’ll wake up, so she leaves and shuts the door once more.

“Anything you need me to do?”

“Yeah. Stay out of my way.”

Cara rolls her eyes but complies, roaming her apartment in search of dirty laundry for lack of anything better to do. She keeps an eye on the kitchen and, when the vegetables are done and Din shakes the noodles out into the water, she goes back over to hover in his peripheral. 

“Almost ready,” he tells her, voice distracted.

Cara skirts around him to pull out the bowl he’ll need. She’s had this dish before, she even knows how to prepare it. She never really liked it much, but also: she’s never had Din Djarin cook it for her. Maybe that’ll make all the difference.

“Here.”

Din takes the offered bowl with a grunt, then the strainer Cara hands him. The noodles cook a moment, maybe two, then he has them off the heat, strained and plopped into the bowl and mixed in with a thickening agent, a few seasonings. The vegetables come off the grill, set to the side to slowly stop sizzling. 

Cara asks, “Is there a kitchen on the Crest?”

“No.”

Cara peers over his shoulder at the noodles. They look slimy. She hums to mask her instinctive disgust. “What do you eat when you’re traveling then, hm?”

“...Ration bars.”

“Ha!”

Din turns, but too fast. Cara doesn’t have a chance to get out of the way. Suddenly they’re toe to toe in her steamy kitchen, dinner almost ready. It’s quiet. Cara thinks idly that she should have put on music, though she doesn’t know what Din likes to listen to. So she asks: “What kind of music do you like?”

“...What?”

“What kind of music do you like, Mandalorian?” She smirks, quirking her brows. “So that the next time you work miracles in my decrepit kitchen I can at least entertain you.”

His head tilts. “You don’t need to entertain me.”

It’s not really an answer, but then: Cara usually doesn’t expect one. She just shrugs, finally stepping away. Out of Din’s space, out of the kitchen. She circles around to the table, kicking out a chair; drops into it heavily. “You sure?”

“Yes, Cara,” Din says, “I’m sure.”

The use of her first name seems wildly unfair, as does the fond exasperation coloring his tone. Cara says without thinking: “Fine. Maybe next time you’ll give me some warning before you come knocking, that way I can get some groceries--” She stops, blinking rapidly as she realizes what she’s just said.

There’s silence.

“Ah,” Cara breathes.

Awkwardly, Din clears his throat; Cara bets he hates that the vocalizer picks up on it, projecting it for her to hear. He simply says, “Maybe I will. After all, it _is_ better fresh.”

True. Cara appreciates how much Din is working to _not_ make this into a thing. She smiles to show it, keeping quiet, staying still, and watches as the Mandalorian mixes the vegetables in with the noodles before finding dishes and utensils, dividing the food out equally. He says, “Don’t blame me if it tastes terrible.”

“It’s teltier noodles, right?”

Din nods. “I didn’t realize you’d had it.”

“Mm,” Cara says, accepting her bowl. “So don’t worry. I already know what to expect.”

He shakes his head, amused. Takes his own bowl and heads towards the kid’s room. Before he can disappear into the safety of it, Cara says, “Hey. Thanks for the food, Din.”

As the door cycles closed on him, he lifts one bare hand up in a casual salute. “You’re doing the clean up,” he tells her, and Cara has to laugh at the timing -- he’s swallowed up by the room before she can even begin to squawk a protest.

Not that she wasn’t expecting it; this, too, is part of their tradition.

Smiling, Cara digs into her noodles. It’s just as disgusting as the last time she had it, yet somehow that doesn’t make her lose the smile. 

\---

After they eat, the Mandalorian borrows her shower and then sits at her table, watching her do the dishes. “We good?” Cara asks, even though the meal currently in her belly implies that they are. 

Din sighs. “We don’t need to talk about this.”

“I think maybe we do,” Cara says, scrubbing at a knife with more intensity than it needs. She hates talking about feelings; it makes her skin crawl. Still, she says: “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, okay? That you’re not important to me. You’re my friend, Din. You’re-- I don’t know. I don’t know how to describe what we are, but you have to know by now that I’d do just about anything for you.”

“...I know.”

Cara nods, finally setting the knife aside before reaching for a bowl. “Good.”

There’s quiet for a moment. Cara thinks back to music preferences, makes plans to go forage for some recordings, as eclectic as she can find them, just to test them out on Din until he cracks and tells her what he likes. She finishes the bowl, moves onto the next.

Din surprises her by saying: “I get why you kicked me out. But I...I am surprised.”

“Yeah?” Cara blinks, glancing back over her shoulder at him, all beskar and stillness at her table. “How so?”

He lifts a hand, turning it palm up and holding it there for a moment. Back in its glove, Cara still knows the flex of Din’s tendons, the hard curve of his knuckles. Intimacy is like that, she thinks; you make yourself vulnerable for one moment, and then for every moment after that it lingers.

“You were really ready to drop me,” Din finally says, hand twitching. 

Cara sighs, turning back to the dishes. “Yeah,” she says. “It… Look, what I do in bed isn’t often casual, even when it is. What I like...when I find someone willing to give that to me, I can’t just…” 

“They trust you,” Din offers into her hesitance, his voice soft, thoughtful. Cara has a hazy recollection of that first night he followed her home. “And you...you know that they do. They’re putting their trust in you, and you aren’t going to let them down.”

Slowly, Cara pushes a breath out. Her chest feels tight. All her muscles are bunched up and at the ready, just thinking about it, how important it is to her that she keeps her partners safe. “Yeah,” she says, rougher than she means to. “They’re my responsibility.”

“...That doesn’t seem very fun for you.”

Cara laughs, a harsh, startled sound. She turns off the sink and wipes her hands down, dishes still dirty. They’ll keep; Cara’s done fussing with them. When she settles back against the counter’s edge, Din has both hands down flat on the table again, and maybe it’s because of what they’re talking about, sparking in Cara enough of the right mindset that she _considers_ —

Nothing, she considers _nothing_. Cara shakes her head to dispel the unwanted thought, glaring off to the side. “Trust me,” she drawls out, voice a little rough around the edges. “It’s plenty fun.”

Din hums, then stands. Tucks the chair back in politely under the table and starts toward the child’s room. “All right,” he says. “I guess I’ll take your word for it.”

Relief allows her shoulders to soften. “Do that,” she says, huffing a nicer laugh than the one before. She thinks that now, they really are good. “You sleeping in there tonight, Mandalorian?”

“Yeah,” he says, opening the door. “Have a good night, Dune. And...thank you. For explaining.”

“No problem,” Cara says. 

He turns to face her again once he’s inside the room, hand on the control panel. Cara waits, wondering idly what the Mandalorian sees when he looks at her. Whatever it is, it must be something more worthy than what she sees half the time in the mirror, because he tells her: “Y’know. There’s not a lot that I wouldn’t do for you, either, Cara Dune.”

Cara grins, knowing it’s a soft, vulnerable thing. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

Satisfied, Din shuts the door.

\----

What she considered is this: Din with his hands flat on the table and the command, “Keep them there, don’t move.”

She’s played that game before, after all. It’s one she likes; how her partner struggles to obey, how they shake and whine and jerk with the desire to move, but never do, because she doesn’t want them to, because they _want_ to obey, to please her. Din in that position, even clothed and armored and shielded from view, had been a spark of promise in her gut, a loud clamor in her pulse -- a whisper of possibility.

But Cara doesn’t get to pursue that line of thinking. Din is her friend and, despite how far he’s pushed in questioning her about her own proclivities, Cara knows better than to assume he actually wants it. And since Cara hasn’t permission to think about him that way, she won’t. 

It’s honestly as simple as that.

\---

A week later the Mandalorian strides into town again. “That was quick,” Cara says, feet up on a table in the cantina. Greef’s with a Guild member a few tables away, shuffling through pucks, so he only raises his eyebrows in surprise when he sees Din coming through, pram obediently in tow.

“Can you watch him?”

Cara blinks, squinting up at Din without reply. She doesn’t like what she sees: his shoulders stiff, spine rigid, a closed off sort of ferality to him. Tense enough to snap. The pram’s closed so she can’t check on the kid, but she assumes he’s okay or Din wouldn’t be here asking her to babysit.

“Why don’t you sit down,” Cara says, tilting her head at the chair opposite. “Tell me what’s got you--”

“Dune,” he growls out, interrupting her. 

It’s a surprise. The Mandalorian is far more likely to offer silence than cut you off mid-sentence. She can feel her muscles tense, the back of her mind buzzing with adrenaline. Sliding her feet off the table, she asks, “You need help?”

“Just watch the kid,” he grits out. 

“Look,” Cara says, getting to her feet, getting in close to him; tension crackles in the air, but it’s all from Din, tense and straining at his own edges. Cara doesn’t like it, though she recognizes it. “You’re not alone here. I can give you whatever you need, so tell me -- do you need _help_ , Mandalorian?” 

For a moment, Din only stands there. The two of them are so close their chests are nearly brushing with each breath they take. Cara fights back the urge to reach up and rest her hand on Din’s pauldron. 

“Used to be,” Din murmurs, voice low enough not to be overheard, “that I had to bribe you for help.”

“Yeah,” Cara agrees. “But I already told you: there’s not much I won’t do for you. You’re a friend now. I don’t have many of those left, and I’m rather keen to keep you in one piece, Mandalorian. Especially since I do _not_ need to be a single mom.”

He leans back, some of the fight gone out of him. Tilts his helmet around to stare at her. “You…”

Cara just shrugs. “What else would I do?”

Both of them ignore the hundred things she _could_ do if Din was taken out and Cara was left with a youngling that seemingly everyone wants a piece of, because none of those are things she _would_ do. Din seems to realize that, if the long, shaky sigh he lets out is anything to go by.

Cara tries again to check in: “You all right? Need some extra muscle with you?”

“No. Just-- Keep him safe. Please.”

Cara steps back, sinks down slowly into her chair. “Sure.”

“Thank you,” Din offers, albeit stiffly. He hesitates, and Cara wonders if he’s going to say something else, and if so, what it might be. She wants to know; is eager to see how his brain turns inside all that beskar that hides him from plain view. But instead he only shakes his head sharply before turning on his heel, eager to be off, disconnecting the pram from his systems as he goes. “I should be back in a few days.”

Cara says, “We’ll be here.”

The words are easy to say for once. Nevarro is her home now, Greef and Din and the child her people. She’s not budging from this place, no matter what happens, and this might be the first time she’s really realized the truth of that, but she doesn’t bother to feel surprised. 

But for whatever reason those words are enough to give the Mandalorian further pause. Only a few impatient strides away from her, he hesitates once more, visible in the open flex of his hands, the way the helmet shifts, shining in the light through the windows. He doesn’t turn back around though, and Cara gets the feeling she’s asked enough of him for now.

“Take your time,” Cara offers. “Just not _too_ much time. I’m still not an actual babysitter, you know.”

“I know,” Din says.

Still, he hesitates. Cara raises both eyebrows, surprised all over again. “Well? What are you waiting for? Get going.”

“All right,” he says, head bowing in acknowledgement. “Buy some groceries, will you? Decent ones. I’ll make dinner when I get back.”

Cara snorts. “No noodles this time!”

A little awkwardly, Din shrugs. “That’s up to you,” he points out. “You’re the one doing the shopping.” 

Cara just grins, biting her tongue on whatever smart comment is about to come out. It’s easy to banter with him, to fall into a cadence of friendship, familiarity. But she can still see the tension all up and down Din’s body and she wants it gone. 

That means letting him leave, so she does.

\----

When Din gets back, it’s four days later and he’s favoring his left knee. 

Cara’s doing push ups in the middle of her floor, hair matted to her forehead and cheeks with sweat. “Hey,” she grunts, “Welcome back.”

The youngling is settled comfortably into the dip of her spine, eating almond-kwevvu crisp munchies, and he gives the sweetest, most delighted little trill when Din comes into view. All Cara can see from her position is Din’s boots in her peripheral, that slightly limping gait as he slowly comes near. “You keyed me into your door?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Cara grunts out, still doing her push ups. “Thanks for asking. You’re a real pal.”

“What if I come in when you’re-- y’know.”

“When I’m what?” Cara asks, because she’d been hoping that Din would just accept the free access to Cara’s apartment without making it into a _thing_. Seems like she’s out of luck in that regard. She concentrates on her push ups, the burn and ache in her arms and shoulders, the tightness in her core. 

He says, “When you’re entertaining guests.”

Cara almost falls on her face, but her startled laughter only leaves her in a puffing gasp. Her arms wobble, but hold firm. “When I’m _fucking_ my guests, you mean?”

Sighing, Din’s careful steps stop a yard away, where he remains politely in view. “Yes,” he says. “That.”

“I have an alpha lock for such purposes. You’ll know when you’re not allowed to barge in, Djarin. How was hunting?”

“It went fine,” he says, thankfully leaving the issue of the lock code alone. Then: “What’s he eating?”

“Munchies,” Cara grits out, because she is still doing her thrice damned set. “I was all out of frogs, so.”

“Hmm.”

Din limps closer. Cara doesn’t stop her workout, and isn’t at all surprised when Din picks the youngling up, along with the snacks. The kid croons, probably doing something utterly adorable. That’s all Cara’s dealt with the last four days: big, heartbreaking eyes and precious, stubby little arms reaching out for her. “Don’t blame me if he’s gotten spoiled,” Cara adds, strain in her voice. “He did _not_ want to sleep alone while you were gone.”

“You’re too soft, Dune,” Din admonishes.

“Like you aren’t worse!”

Din hums, and next thing Cara knows there’s motion over her. She freezes, then is stunned to find that Din has straddled her back and he’s--

“What are you doing?” Cara says.

Din sits on her.

“Like I said, you’re too soft,” Din explains, carefully settling in and arranging himself so he’s cross-legged. He is _not light_ , though he is at least aware of where his weight would be most damaging. Cara can hold position, but only barely. Her already shaking arms are practically _vibrating_ with strain. 

“Oh, _fuck_ you,” she gasps out, “I’ll show you-- fuck, you weigh more than a kriffing starship!”

Din laughs his quiet laugh. “Not possible. Did you go shopping?”

“I--fucking-- _did_ ,” Cara pants out, carefully lowering herself to the floor and then forcing her body to lift again. 

“I hope you got more than whatever this junk is.” 

There’s a rustling noise behind her ear; Din must be shaking the bag of munchies pointedly. Cara would say something smart, but she can’t get the breath to form the words, and this is just-- this is _dumb_ , and also: amazing. The laughter is born from somewhere deep inside, way back in her belly and soul, impossible to keep out. It shakes her limbs first, makes them weak and soft, and she hits the floor with a _whump_ , the breath momentarily knocked out of her.

“You all right?” Din asks, tone dry. The youngling coos, delighted.

“You’re an _ass_ ,” Cara manages, right before the laughter shakes itself free, spilling out loud and bright.

\----

After a shower, Cara finds the Mandalorian raiding her kitchen again. “See anything you like?” she teases, still toweling her hair dry. He just hums, pulling things out one-handed to examine, then replacing them. He seems content for the moment, so Cara leaves him to it, making a funny face at the youngling where he’s curled up against Din’s shoulder, peeking at her from over a beskar pauldron. 

Cara thinks again of music; growing up, her house had always been full of it, a near constant companion to life’s little mundanities. It’s been years since Cara experienced anything of the sort, but having Din here, like this… 

It’s not a surprise that she keeps thinking of it, is the thing. 

She’s feeling warm and lazy and indulgent, so she puts on her favorite of the lot she found shopping in the market with the kid: a good quality recording of a nameless band’s live set, the music jazzy, the vocals soulful. 

Din turns, posture startled.

“What?” Cara asks, quirking a brow. “You got a problem with a little music?”

“...No,” he says, and Cara has to turn back to the controls so she can lower the volume a little. The music goes from soaring and unapologetic to a thrumming heartbeat, a sea of sound for Din and Cara to wade their way gently through. His posture relaxes once the volume goes down.

“You sure about that?” Cara presses, brow still quirked.

“It was just...loud,” he says, turning back toward the trimpian meat he’s pulled out onto a cutting board. “I didn’t expect it.”

Cara supposes she could push, keep pestering Din for a better reaction -- something solid to sink her teeth into -- but the Mandalorian is stubborn when he wants to be, so whatever opinion he has on this style of music Cara will have to wait to find out. That’s fine; Cara knows how to be patient. Instead she goes up and plucks the youngling from Din’s arms, saying, “You’ve never told me your name for him.”

“...What?”

Rolling her eyes, Cara goes over to her couch and flops down on it, kid held secure through the fall. “All this time I’ve been babysitting,” she grumps, “and I haven’t known what to call him. Seems kinda weird, don’t you think? He should have a name.”

Din finds a knife, the shape of his knuckles around the hilt eye-catching. “I call him Ad.”

“Ad, huh?” Cara asks. She looks at the ridiculous ball of green plopped on her belly, watching Din prepare dinner even more avidly than she is. Little guy is always hungry, it seems. But at the sound of his name in Cara’s mouth, he gives a happy little trill and glances back at her, ears lifting with curiosity. 

“Don’t--” Din starts to say.

But he doesn't continue, and his back looks...strange. Not quite defensive, but oddly vulnerable. Cara frowns at his bowed head, the stiff way he holds the knife still. “Don’t what?”

“Just...don’t use it in front of anyone else,” Din says, letting out a slow, deliberate breath. He goes back to cutting the meat. 

Cara isn’t sure why it matters, but there’s a lot she doesn’t understand about Din Djarin. For all she knows it’s another part of his code; the thought makes her chest flutter, warm and dangerously sweet, because maybe Cara doesn't know Din’s music preferences yet, but he’s still giving up pieces of himself to share with her, bit by careful bit.

“Sure,” she tells him. “Now, c’mon, Ad, let’s go see what Din’s making.”

“It’s nothing fancy, Dune. Meat in sauce, that’s it.”

“Sauce is fancy.” 

“No,” Din says, patience already fraying. “It’s _not_.”

Cara grins, setting the kid on top of the table. He doesn’t let go of Cara, tiny fingers wrapped around her fingers as he teeters back and forth. “I always hated dinners at my grandmother’s. We’d get all dressed up and have to be on our best behavior, which, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about me or not, Din--”

“I really fucking have,” Din mutters.

“--but I am not the type for polite society, _and_ I get bored easily. Anyway, my grandmother always had a fancy spread for dinner, lots of different sauces, and she’d give you this _look_ if you put the wrong kind of sauce on the wrong kind of food. So, sauce is definitely fancy, right Ad?”

Din cuts himself with the knife, hissing quietly.

“Shit,” Cara says. “You all right?”

“Yes.”

It isn’t like Din to cut himself with a blade, so Cara doesn’t believe that for a second. She tugs gently free from the kid’s grip and goes over, inspecting the wound. “That’s gonna sting like a bitch,” Cara murmurs, and Din grumbles and sets down the knife, grasping for a nearby rag to apply pressure with. 

“It’s fine,” he says.

“Sure,” Cara tells him, because yeah, it’s a tiny cut, but also Din _cut himself_. And, now that Cara’s thinking about it, he’s still favoring his knee. “You’re a mess, Djarin. Go sit with your kid and let me do the cooking for once.”

Din swings his head around to stare at her, the angle of his visor easily reading as incredulous.

“Fuck off. You _just said_ that sauce isn’t fancy. Talk me through it, it’ll be fine!”

Din huffs, shaking his head. But he trades places with Cara in any case, sitting heavily at the chair Cara had ignored, leg carefully outstretched beneath the table. The youngling coos, tottering toward him with outstretched hands. Din tells him solemnly: “We might have to go out to eat, Ad’ika.”

“I am armed,” Cara threatens, waggling the cooking knife in Din’s direction. “Now, directions. What’s next?”

He tells her, tone vacillating between mockery and despair. But somehow or another Cara enjoys it -- she doesn’t care for cooking at all, but it’s nice enough to prepare something for people she _does_ care about. Truthfully, it seems surreal that a night like this might belong to her; that her apartment could be cozy with music, rich with savory smells, and alight with companionable conversation. It’s not something she expected to have, but now that she does, she wants desperately to keep it.

\---

Despite Din’s protests about Cara feeding the kid crap, he doesn’t say a _word_ when Cara dumps a bag overstuffed with exo-protein wafers and almond-kwevvu crisp munchies onto the Crest. “A little variety never hurt anyone,” is all Cara offers in explanation.

Din comes over and grasps the back of her neck in one gloved palm, tipping his helmet against her forehead. He says, “Ret'urcye mhi.”

“Uh,” is Cara’s eloquent response.

“You’re an idiot,” Din tells her solemnly, and then dances out of range before Cara can trip him. “Maybe instead of that awful music you can find a recording of some Mando’a lessons.”

“The fuck would I want to know Mando’a for?”

“So you can know when I’m insulting you,” is Din’s smartass explanation, and then he’s up the ramp and into the cockpit, the Crest closing shut behind him. 

Cara shouts a few choice insults of her own, none of which he can hear over the whine of the engines starting, but she’s grinning as she does so. Din and his kid leave Nevarro behind once more, and Cara doesn’t wait around to watch them. She heads home, instead, and puts that jazzy music set on that she likes so much; the one that Din, apparently, does _not_ enjoy. 

It’s the little victories that matter, Cara thinks, and turns the volume up louder.

\---  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks as always to wookiepedia and also the website for that one star wars game that i can't remember the name of now which is where i spent FAR TOO MUCH TIME looking at crafting recipes and considering them Seriously. that was a blast lol
> 
> hope you enjoyed <3


End file.
